Open Your Eyes: Eerie Epilogue
by SteveAtwater
Summary: Milkshakes are a pretty simple concept.


This isn't really connected to the main _Open Your Eyes_ story; it's a side trip that takes place after _Open Your Eyes: Gravity Falls_. I hope you enjoy it.

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When you think about it, milkshakes are a pretty simple concept. Milk, ice cream, blend, serve. It's simple when reduced to its base components. Then again, so is everything. Physics is just "things moving." Philosophy is "do things matter." Commerce is "selling things." Reducing anything to its base elements makes it sound easy. But not all people can master these base elements once they're put together, because the tricky bit isn't the base elements, or even putting them together. The tricky bit is putting them together correctly. And being able to put something together correctly is art.

Not everyone can master an art. But Mr. Radford had mastered two: commerce and the soda counter. Three, if you counted living in Eerie as an art–which, arguably, it was.

(He hadn't mastered the art of not getting tied up, or the art of escaping after having been tied up.)

Currently, the soda counter was where Mr. Radford was working. The World O' Stuff was mostly empty, the sole exceptions being an elderly woman closely examining toilet paper and a man staring down into the depths of a milkshake.

This particular milkshake was a specialty that Mr. Radford had concocted for him. Called a Denver J, it was a peanut butter and banana sandwich with a layer of fried whipped cream and sprinkles on top (plus, of course, the obligatory maraschino cherry). Mr. Radford never asked where his customer had developed a taste for peanut butter and banana; he was just thankful that the man had ceased to insist that bacon had to be included. After all, an artist must respect the limitations of the canvas.

The man sat facing away from Mr. Radford. He stared out the window, eyes invisible behind his sunglasses. The fluorescent lights reflected dully off the sequins on his white jumpsuit, and his lips were drawn tight and his posture was tense. Most worrying to Mr. Radford was the fact that while the man usually dug into his milkshake with gusto, this time he was only taking small sips from the straw and hadn't even touched the whipped cream or the cherry on top.

Mr. Radford began wiping down the counter, keeping one eye on the old lady and the other on his tense customer. The man kept his eyes fixed on the front window, as though he was waiting for something.

A milk truck went by outside. A few minutes later, another one went past. A minute later, there was another milk truck, and then another one half a minute after that, and then a long line of milk trucks passed by the store until one of them pulled out of line and parked.

A milkman exited the vehicle, slamming the door, and looked directly at his target. As soon as their eyes met, the man at the counter looked away and stared down into his Denver J. The milkman, meanwhile, strode into the store purposefully and sat down at the soda counter.

Mr. Radford swooped over to him. "So, what can I get you?" he asked. "How's about I get you a–"

"Milk," the milkman said flatly.

"You sure?" Mr. Radford asked. "We've got plenty of–"

"Milk," the milkman repeated.

Mr. Radford shut his mouth and poured the milkman his requested drink. The other man at the counter refused to look at the newcomer. The milkman downed his drink in one gulp and slammed the glass down on the counter.

"So, how's about you sing, eh?" the milkman said.

The man at the counter took a long sip of his milkshake and took his time swallowing. He then turned to his questioner.

"You and I both know I ain't done that for a while," he said. "At least not for an audience."

The milkman smirked. "Cute. Almost as cute as that trick you pulled an hour ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the man said.

"Oh really?" the milkman asked. "Then let me jog your memory. Pink Cadillac convertible, some fancy driving, breaking 100 on the main drag, dropping some passengers off in the woods. Sound familiar?"

The man took a sip of his Denver J and smacked his lips. "Nope."

The milkman scowled. "We both know you're the only one who drives a car like that."

The man looked directly at him. "You calling me a liar?"

A tense silence took hold as they stared at each other. The milkman was the first to look away.

The milkman sighed. "I know we don't always see eye to eye, but nobody in this town does. I mean, you work with Radford _and_ Chisel. There's no world in which that makes sense."

"This is Eerie," the man pointed out.

The milkman looked him in the sunglasses. "Just tell me what you were up to."

"Just tell me why you were trying to stop me," the man countered.

The milkman scowled. "That's none of your concern."

"Y'all seemed to be awfully concerned," the man said. "At least, if what you're saying about a pink Cadillac having to bomb down the main drag to get away from y'all is correct."

Silence descended on the soda counter. The man took another sip of his Denver J.

"Where did they go?"

"What?" the man asked, surprised.

"They weren't in the woods," the milkman said. "They couldn't have gotten far since they didn't have enough time. Besides, I didn't hear any sounds of...well..."

"Woodland critters?" the man suggested.

The milkman nodded. "They just disappeared into thin air."

"Maybe they were never there," the man said. "Maybe you're imagining the whole thing."

The milkman shook his head. "Nope. Not possible."

"This is Eerie," the man pointed out.

"And I'm a milkman."

The man took another sip of his milkshake. This drained it down to the dregs, leaving nothing but the whipped cream and the cherry. He reached in, pulled out the cherry, and devoured it before pushing the empty glass down the counter towards Mr. Radford. In a practiced motion, the shopkeeper picked up the glass and began to clean it before it had finished its slide. The man, meanwhile, got up and headed for the door.

"So that's it?" the milkman called after him. "You're not even gonna explain what that was all about?"

The man didn't respond. Instead, he just walked out of the World O' Stuff, started his pink Cadillac, and drove off.

"Elvis has left the building," Mr. Radford muttered. He put on a cheery smile and faced the milkman. "So, you want anything else?"

The milkman shook his head, disappointed. "Get me a Black Cow. Please."

Mr. Radford nodded. "You got it."


End file.
